Deposite

The deposit of the Substitute Ark is celebrated in the Degree of Select Master, and is supposed to have taken place in the last year of the building of Solomon's Temple, or 1000 B.C. This is therefore adopted as the date in Cryptic Freemasonry. In the legendary history of Freemasonry as preserved in the Cryptic Degrees, two deposits are spoken of; the deposit of the Substitute Ark, and the deposits of the Word, both being referred to the same year and being different parts of one transaction. They have, therefore, sometimes been confounded. The deposit of the Ark was made by the three Grand Masters; that of the Word by Hiram Abif alone.